Apologies to chairman; commissioner still wrong

Dear Editor: The purpose of this letter is twofold: First, I must apologize to Ulster County Democrat Chairman Frank Cardinale for bringing his name into my comments regarding Democrat Elections Commissioner Ashley Dittus’ comments to the Freeman. In the 10 years we have served as county party chairmen at the same time, Frank and I have maintained a sense of civility in all of our contacts, and I was out of line including him in my Dec. 18 press release. (Editor’s note: The Freeman article that resulted from the press release — “Ulster County GOP boss says Dem commissioner can’t be impartial in DA election recount,” Dec. 18, 2019 — did not include the reference to Cardinale.)

Second, and most importantly, I have no doubt that had the Democratic candidate for district attorney been behind by less than 100 votes that Ms. Dittus would be singing a different tune regarding the need for a recount in that race. Her statements disparaging Republican Michael J. Kavanagh’s decision to seek a recount (“Kavanagh declines to waive recount in Ulster County DA race; tally could take month,” Dec. 17, 2019), given her position as an elections commissioner, were so obnoxious, inappropriate and hypercritical as to almost defy description. Without a doubt, they reveal she is overtly partisan and more concerned with electing members of her party than ensuring elections conducted in Ulster County are fair and that the candidate chosen by a majority of the voters is, in fact, the one elected.

Her salary is paid by all the taxpayers of Ulster County, not one political party. More to the point, Ms. Dittus, by her comments, has left little doubt that she cannot fairly and objectively execute the responsibilities of her position. At the very least, she should recuse herself from any further involvement in the DA race and not participate in the recount.

As for her claim that a recount is unnecessary, Ms. Dittus conveniently failed to mention it is a matter of public record that the Board of Elections encountered serious problems while tabulating the votes in this race and made significant mistakes in the vote totals it finally posted after the election. Initially, the early voting results were not included in the online postings of the results. And in its initial calculation of votes received by each candidate, the board originally gave the Democratic candidate more than 3,000 votes than he actually received on the Libertarian line. This error was not discovered by the board until long after the polls had closed and only corrected when questions were raised by the Kavanagh campaign.

And to make matters worse, the vote totals in this race, as reported on the board’s official website, were significantly altered and changed two days after the election. That circumstance, coupled with the fact that the board had to suspend its operation on Election Night and could not complete its count until the following day because a key employee suffered a medical emergency, raises serious and legitimate questions regarding the accuracy of the board’s final count in this election.

While Ms. Dittus is entitled to express her opinions, please don’t tell me that a mistake could not have been made in the tabulation of votes in the DA race. Mistakes were made and corrections were made and as a result; a recount is warranted and clearly necessary. Even Gov. Andrew Cuomo is sponsoring legislation mandating recounts in elections in which the outcomes are so close because a recount in such a circumstance is clearly in the public interest. I suspect that Ms. Dittus, if asked, would agree with the governor. And again, if the shoe was on the other foot, she would be beating a drum demanding that there be a recount. Roger Rascoe, chairman

Ulster County Republican Committee